Breathe Forest is an artwork integrating interactive visualization which transforms data from its surrounding environment to visible output and expresses itself with RGB LED lights and the rotation of its movable component. The central part of our project is a tree whose crown consists of a few LED-lights. The color of each LED-light depends on the data from an MQ 135 air quality detector that is sensitive to the density of PPM and CO2 in the air. When the air quality of the surrounding environment is excellent (the value from the Air quality sensor is low), the lights on the tree stay green, which makes the Breath Forest looks quite peaceful and healthy. When the air quality goes worse (the value from the Air quality sensor becomes high), the lights turn into red. Breath Forest’s aesthetic is very intuitive, and it brings more awareness of air quality change to the audience. Besides, flowers are attached to a pager motor which is controlled by a humidity and temperature sensor. The pager motor was placed beside the tree. When the sensor notices the humidity and temperature increase, the rotation of the pager motor rapidly speeds up. Our purpose of creating the Breathe Forest is to draw people’s attention to some environmental issues such as global warming, acid rain, and air pollution.   

Weiyin Huang, Yafei Huang, Rongyi Liao, Jiangliang Sun, Dolgormaa Battur